Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

linux server <--> OS X filesharing

shecky

shecky

Guest
Original poster
May 24, 2003
2,580
5
Obviously you're not a golfer.
i am just about to build a fileserver/network attached storage box for my studio, and i have some questions about the software before i take the leap; mainly about how to set up the NAS to work properly with OS X machines.

after some research, there are a lot of comments about the stability/reliability of FreeNAS, so i have decided to go to a linux installation, most seem to say Ubuntu is the way to go. now, i have never touched linux, so its all new to me, but i can do my research and figure out what i need to (i hope). the big question that i cannot seem to get a clear answer is what protocol to set up the NAS with. my understanding is that Samba is a windows protocol that OSX can access via SMB, whereas AFP is a mac protocol that would work better? i also hear there is something called netatalk that you can put onto the ubuntu server to make it AFP capable? i am hearing there is some issue with filenames between OSX and the server with SMB.

basically, i am a bit lost and before i go buy all the stuff to build the box, i want to make sure i know what i am getting into. if anyone can give me a quick primer or point me in an easy to understand direction that would be great!

me = confused
 
shecky said:
i am just about to build a fileserver/network attached storage box for my studio, and i have some questions about the software before i take the leap; mainly about how to set up the NAS to work properly with OS X machines.

after some research, there are a lot of comments about the stability/reliability of FreeNAS, so i have decided to go to a linux installation, most seem to say Ubuntu is the way to go. now, i have never touched linux, so its all new to me, but i can do my research and figure out what i need to (i hope). the big question that i cannot seem to get a clear answer is what protocol to set up the NAS with. my understanding is that Samba is a windows protocol that OSX can access via SMB, whereas AFP is a mac protocol that would work better? i also hear there is something called netatalk that you can put onto the ubuntu server to make it AFP capable? i am hearing there is some issue with filenames between OSX and the server with SMB.

basically, i am a bit lost and before i go buy all the stuff to build the box, i want to make sure i know what i am getting into. if anyone can give me a quick primer or point me in an easy to understand direction that would be great!

me = confused
Click to expand...
I don't know much about Linux either, having only used Knoppix from a Live CD. However, I am familiar with SMB, and can tell you this:

Filename problems with SMB are going to occur with any Mac file that has characters in the name Mac OS X allows but Windows does not. These characters are:
Code: 
" / \ [ ] ; =
(Note: the colon character ( : ) is forbidden in file names by both Mac OS X and Windows.)
 
shecky said:
me = confused
Click to expand...

I'll bite.

You seem sold on building a linux box, but is it worth your time and energy to build AND maintain?

Why not use a mac mini (G4s could be had for $300 or less) with some attached external drives? Granted you won't get RAID 5 without a special enclosure, but you can get RAID 1 from OS X.

For me, dealing with a platform that I already know is worth it.
 
ahhh i see. i dont use characters like that anyway, but i still hear that SMB is a bad choice when only macs will be accessing the server.

now i am looking thru the freeNAS user guide and i see this:

4.4.7AFP
AFP permits Apple MacOSX users to access the storage resources of FreeNAS.
From Appleshare:
Guest mode: afp://guest;AUTH=No%20User%20Authent:password@FreeNASip/share
Click to expand...

so freeNAS can use AFP?
 
kingjr3 said:
I'll bite.

You seem sold on building a linux box, but is it worth your time and energy to build AND maintain?

Why not use a mac mini (G4s could be had for $300 or less) with some attached external drives? Granted you won't get RAID 5 without a special enclosure, but you can get RAID 1 from OS X.

For me, dealing with a platform that I already know is worth it.
Click to expand...

because i have no interest in many externals that cannot be setup as RAID5 or 6. its not an efficient use of hardware or my money.

my understanding is that once a linux box is set up properly, its pretty much maintenance free.

windows machines will never access this box, only two macs.
 
kingjr3 said:
don't say you haven't been warned ;)
Click to expand...

well, its just what i read :) i do not expect it to be nearly that simple. but a guy can dream.

kingjr3 said:
Good luck to you...Oh! and I'd just use Samba for the file sharing.
Click to expand...

i keep reading that samba + OSX make for a very sluggish and unstable marriage. apparently file transfers are much slower than on other systems and the only way i want to do this is if it works reasonably quickly.

after further research, it looks like AFP is indeed built into FreeNAS; maybe thats the way to go since i keep reading over and over how darn easy it is. assuming AFP is the best way to go, i am going to have to continue my research of freeNAS's stability.
 
shecky said:
i keep reading that samba + OSX make for a very sluggish and unstable marriage. apparently file transfers are much slower than on other systems and the only way i want to do this is if it works reasonably quickly.
Click to expand...

AFP will be the best in a mac only network. If FreeNAS supports that, go for it. if you can you do both SMB and AFP, that would be best since you never know when a non-mac user will come join your network :)

Our office uses Samba in a mixed environment (linux, mac, win) and our only bottleneck is the actual network (still 10 and 100 base T) - never encountered any weirdness that I am aware of.
 
shecky said:
my understanding is that once a linux box is set up properly, its pretty much maintenance free.

I can attest to this on the linux server. I have been using linux servers for several years for a pc network here at work. After I setup the linux server its pretty much not a need to touch it ain till something breaks, which is not that often. My trouble has been hard drives going bad an having to replace one in the raid array, granted the server is still running since I have raid in place. I have not had any dealings with the afb for mac stuff. I do have a couple of mac connecting to my linux servers here at work ( samba running on linux) they connect an work ok for me. The 2 macs are mine.

I use SuSe linux here by the way. :)

jack malone
Click to expand...
 
well, just an update: i got all the parts in and built the NAS and for the 30 seconds i got to play with it last night before finally passing out at 3AM it works great.

i set it up with just AFP and transfers from my MBP to the NAS via a gigabit switch are supercrazy fast; faster than my FW400 drives to be sure (i do not have any FW800 drives to compare them to.) i will have to look at my stats but it feels like its in the 30-50 MB/sec range, maybe faster.

the final formatted RAID5 setup of my 3 500GB SATA seagate drives comes to about 870GB of useable space. i am actually debating grabbing another drive now to up that total to around 1.3TB formatted capacity; since FreeNAS does not support expanding the array while keeping data intact. (i would need to move all the data off the NAS, rebuild the array with the 4th drive, then move all the data back on) i think i would rather do it now than do it later.

thanks for the help!
 
i did read that early in my research and to be honest, the (relative) complexity of Ubuntu to freenas seemed to outweigh its benefits, at least to me: a linux/unix virgin.

having said that, if i could find an easy, step by step "how to" on installing ubuntu, adding AFP and configuring the RAID5 i would have no problem giving it a go; freenas takes a total of 15 minutes to set up from start to finish so i can always redo it if need be.
 
shecky said:
well, just an update: i got all the parts in and built the NAS and for the 30 seconds i got to play with it last night before finally passing out at 3AM it works great.

i set it up with just AFP and transfers from my MBP to the NAS via a gigabit switch are supercrazy fast; faster than my FW400 drives to be sure (i do not have any FW800 drives to compare them to.) i will have to look at my stats but it feels like its in the 30-50 MB/sec range, maybe faster.

the final formatted RAID5 setup of my 3 500GB SATA seagate drives comes to about 870GB of useable space. i am actually debating grabbing another drive now to up that total to around 1.3TB formatted capacity; since FreeNAS does not support expanding the array while keeping data intact. (i would need to move all the data off the NAS, rebuild the array with the 4th drive, then move all the data back on) i think i would rather do it now than do it later.

thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

congrats on getting it to work. i'm curious as to what equipment did you buy?
 
i ended up with the following:

Asus M2NPB-VM motherboard (built-in video, and gigabit LAN)
AMD Sempron 64 3000+ processor (cheapest socket AM2 processor i could find on newegg)
Corsair 512MB DDR2 RAM
Cooler Master Centurion 5 case (cheapest relatively decent looking case with a 120mm back fan and an 80mm fan over the drive cage)
Enermax Noisetaker EG45P 430w power supply
3 x 500GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA drives

and a few SATA cables, etc. i already had an old IDE 40GB maxtor drive i used as the boot drive, and an old CDROM i used to install FreeNAS and then pulled back out of the case.

so with some cables, a gigabit netgear switch, and shipping the grand total was about $800 even.
 
shecky said:
i ended up with the following:

Asus M2NPB-VM motherboard (built-in video, and gigabit LAN)
AMD Sempron 64 3000+ processor (cheapest socket AM2 processor i could find on newegg)
Corsair 512MB DDR2 RAM
Cooler Master Centurion 5 case (cheapest relatively decent looking case with a 120mm back fan and an 80mm fan over the drive cage)
Enermax Noisetaker EG45P 430w power supply
3 x 500GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA drives

and a few SATA cables, etc. i already had an old IDE 40GB maxtor drive i used as the boot drive, and an old CDROM i used to install FreeNAS and then pulled back out of the case.

so with some cables, a gigabit netgear switch, and shipping the grand total was about $800 even.
Click to expand...

thanks for posting :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back